


One Stranger's Warmth is Another's Light

by Reddd



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Angst, Cutting, Depression, Hospitals, In a way, M/M, Overdose, Recovery, Self-Harm, Suicide Attempt, i don't know what else to put so enjoy this??, i think, idk this is kind of like a narration, light - Freeform, warmth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-22
Updated: 2016-10-22
Packaged: 2018-08-23 23:16:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8346649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reddd/pseuds/Reddd
Summary: Tyler's earliest memory is of hurting himself.Tyler's most recent memory is of hurting himself.





	

**Author's Note:**

> hello!! this may potentially be triggering, so if you're sensitive to the topics mentioned in the tags then please take caution when reading this! i hope you enjoy!

Tyler's earliest memory is of him hurting himself.  
His mother had been closing the boot of the car, and he had been strapped into the car seat in the back with a bag next to him. The boot door was inching shut slowly; it was an automatic car, one of the cars where you didn't have to manually close the door, you simply had to press a button and then the door closed itself.  
Tyler had been idly watching the door slide shut, his fingers fumbling with one of the black straps on the bag beside him, when a sudden thought had struck him, seemingly from nowhere. Something in his mind was telling him to stop the door, to stick his fingers under its gradual pressure, to hurt himself.  
He did.  
Tyler had reached over the back of the seat, fingers curling around the metal of the door. He had gazed indifferently as it lowered itself down, down, down...  
Crunch.  
Tyler hadn't expected the pain to be so bad. He didn't know what he had expected, but he knew this was far worse than he could've ever imagined. He had screamed so loudly his own eardrums had strained in protest. The door kept mindlessly trying to cripple him further, it didn't know that there was fragile fingers under its crushing force, so it just did what it had been programmed to do; close.  
And close it did.  
Right on top of his fingers.  
His family's trip had been postponed. Tyler had been rushed to hospital. Tyler's fingers had been shattered seemingly in every place imaginable except for the tips. The doctors said he would recover fine, but he would lose some mobility in his right hand, which was the hand he had decided to torture.  
Tyler is left-handed from then on, but passes it off as preference.  
Just like he passed off the accident as just that; an accident. 

Tyler's most recent memory is of him hurting himself.  
The scene has been described countless times before, lived infinite amounts of times, perhaps even being lived at this very moment in time.  
Bathroom floor. Blood. Blades. Stifled tears. Silence. Sadness.  
Cliche.  
His right arm was subjected to organised lines, shaky streams of blood, and crevices of worsening depths in his skin.  
His left arm was unmarked.  
The same could not be said for the bathroom floor, which was stained from nights from the past, identical to the one he was suffering through when he finally made that one line that pushed himself too far. The one line that almost ended him. The line that would have ended him, had it not been for his family's lack of boundaries that he used to find so irritating.  
There had been screaming that sounded almost deranged, erratic pounding of what seemed like footsteps, frantic voices and rough hands that yanked at his limbs and shook him violently. Tyler tried to wave them away to let him sleep, but he realised he wasn't able to move.  
He regained consciousness briefly, once he was situated in the hospital bed. He was treated for blood loss. His family pressed him to promise that he would never do it again, that this would never happen again. He promised it wouldn't.  
They believed him.  
He didn't believe himself.

Tyler hurt himself in the hospital bed, the next time he came to.  
He probed the painful lumps in his skin, the wedges of the needles poking into his veins, and found the longest piece of metal. He ripped it out as carelessly as he dared, before he frantically started ripping his flesh apart.  
He wanted his world to fade into black, into the unfeeling darkness he craved.  
The person he shared a room with started yelling for the nurses. Tyler ignored their wide-eyed stares of horror. His mind was only focused on seeing his blood. Tyler shivered in sick delight. Blood.  
The doctors and nurses swept in like a tornado. They orbited each other in no set fashion, spiralling around and taking things with them as they went. They hurled words at Tyler, the atmosphere and flurry blowing him away. He felt as if he were falling, but all he did was stare at the blood leaking from the tears he created on his arm. The nurses obscured his mouth with an oxygen mask, and as he felt himself drifting from coherency, he finally looked up.  
He locked eyes with his room partner.  
Terrified, concerned mocha eyes with startling warmth stared back at his own dull, empty eyes.  
His world faded to the same brown he saw in the stranger's eyes, the same brown swallowing his world, until it finally dimmed to black.  
Tyler wanted the brown back.  
Tyler didn't want the black anymore.

Tyler saw the brown one more time.  
He awoke in the same room, his arms heavily bandaged, both of them. He realised with a start that there was also tight gauze wrap around his neck. He guessed that explained why his breathing was minutely constricted. He didn't remember hacking at his neck, but he must have, considering his throat was wrapped. He rubbed his neck, scratched at his arms, and relished in the blunt pain.  
Until he looked up.  
He froze when he met the hollow eyes of his room partner. His hand fell from his neck as he was swamped with uneasiness. Something wasn't right. He realised what it was.  
The stranger's eyes were sad. They weren't meant to be sad.  
Tyler felt like it was his fault.  
He wanted to redeem himself, and make the stranger's eyes warm again.  
He waved.  
The stranger looked momentarily taken aback, but a wavering smile slipped onto his face cautiously, as if he were unsure of whether or not he was permitted to smile in Tyler's presence.  
Tyler tried to smile but his mouth didn't move. He pulled the sides of his mouth into something resembling a smile to make up for the lack of muscle movement.  
The stranger laughed and Tyler felt accomplished.  
Tyler didn't hurt himself.

The eyes were warm again, but the room felt cold after the stranger was gone.  
Tyler's soul swallowed the world, leaving everything outside of the room much more chipper, but the room Tyler resided in might as well have been called a tomb. The warmth that the stranger radiated, that once filled the room, was gone. Now all that remained was Tyler's gloom, and the aura around him that reeked of instability and emptiness. The room drained the spirits of all who entered.  
The stranger had left earlier in the morning. He had paused at the door and beamed at Tyler, which threw Tyler's suicidal momentum off (the stranger had been asleep, so Tyler had nothing to distract himself) its tracks completely, virtually eradicating it.  
Tyler smiled back.  
It had been a minuscule smile, barely a stretch of the lips at all, but the stranger looked overjoyed.  
The stranger waved as he walked out, and Tyler reached for him as he left, but the stranger had turned his back already. Tyler thought it was for the best that the stranger didn't see his gesture. 

Tyler didn't have the energy to hurt himself the day the warm stranger left.  
Tyler's family had visited later that day, but Tyler was duller than he had ever felt before. His interactions were numb, and empty of real effort. His family knew something was up, but like every other time before, they didn't ask if he was okay. Tyler knew this was because of their fear of triggering something dangerous in his psyche. Their fear of him.  
Tyler wanted to tell them that asking him how he's doing won't suddenly compel him to mutilate himself, and it won't suddenly throw him into a downward spiral of suicide and depression, but he didn't tell them anything. He didn't mention the stranger, but he was sure they felt the absence of his warmth.  
Tyler wanted the warmth back.  
His family brought him three thick, woollen blankets, but his bones felt freezing. He felt as if the only possible thing capable of thawing him was the stranger's warmth, or the pits of Hell.  
He didn't know which of those would greet him first.

The day after the stranger had left, Tyler hurt himself.  
The nurses had grown slack with him. They had pressed him for details when they noticed his lethargy after the stranger left, but Tyler gave nothing away, so they had watched him, but after convincing themselves that he was not going to harm anyone (namely himself), their focus on him faltered and was directed elsewhere.  
Tyler welcomed this by slashing his arms and his neck with the food utensils (he didn't use them).  
The fork was surprisingly effective, but the knife had lovely, spiky ridges that tore him well enough if he used enough pressure.  
Tyler used excess pressure and hit two veins.  
Reality faded from his sights, and he slipped into the blackness once more.  
He was reminded of a similar scene that had taken place in the very same room two days ago. Desperate nurses tended to him efficiently despite the frenzied condition.  
A warm brown flickered amongst the black that swallowed his sight.  
Tyler wanted it back, but it disappeared.  
Again.

Tyler didn't have the energy to hurt himself.  
His family had been notified, and they had been delirious with worry and fear. Tyler hadn't wanted to see them. The nurses drugged him sufficiently, enough to allow him dreamless sleep through the night.  
When he had woken, he felt incredibly numb. His bedside was void of any warmth, and he had no company awaiting him. He stared at the ceiling.  
He blinked and it felt as though hours had passed, and they had.  
A nurse came in and monitored him, checked his vitals. Tyler was told that he didn't have enough blood to fully support him, so he was hooked up to a blood packet that was slowly draining into his veins. He stared at it, then at the needle which was firmly strapped into his arm to prevent him from tearing it out again.  
The blood was cold.  
Tyler wanted warmth.

Tyler didn't hurt himself because his family never left the room.  
His mom smiled at him. His dad concealed tears and acted stoic. His red eyes gave him away, but Tyler wasn't going to point it out. His brother punched his arm and was chided by approximately three nurses. After an hour he still looked guilty and his eyes held tints of remorse.  
His mother asked if he was enjoying it so far. His brother raised his eyebrows at her and simply stared in disbelief. Tyler could relate.  
Tyler wanted to tell her about the warm stranger, the brilliant happiness the man radiated, the sunshine that filled any room he was in.  
Tyler shrugged.  
His mother bit back a sigh as he stroked his head. His father held his hand and his brother left the room for an hour.  
Tyler swallowed his tears and pulled his head and hand away, pulling his lips into a 'smile', the way he did with the stranger.  
His dad looked away while his mom forced a laugh. His brother's footsteps echoed.

Tyler didn't hurt himself when his family left. He was asleep.  
When Tyler woke, it was in the AM hours that could be classified both as early morning and late night, but it depended on the context. To Tyler, it was early morning, because he woke up. To those who stayed up, it was late night.  
Tyler couldn't sleep.  
He called a groggy nurse, and requested sleeping pills. She dosed him accordingly, and then shuffled out of the room.  
Tyler was freezing.  
He went back to sleep.

Tyler didn't want to hurt himself when he woke up.  
He woke up to a disconcerting warmth in the room. He cracked his eyes open, and was instantly struck by blue. He blinked uncertainly, before it registered that the stranger was back.  
He simply stared.  
The stranger had blue hair, and his smile was brighter than ever. He has a nose ring that somehow made the sunshine streaming through the window look even brighter.  
Tyler waved limply. His mouth hung open slightly.  
The stranger laughed, and held out a hand. His other hand loosely gripped the armrest of the uncomfortable chair beside Tyler's bed. Tyler almost wanted to offer the stranger a seat on his bed, but he knew that would be too weird.  
Tyler hesitantly reached forward to grasp the other man's hand. He was struck by warmth, heat flooded him and his fingers burned.  
"I'm Josh," the stranger said.  
The sunshine warmed Tyler more than it ever had before, or perhaps it was the stranger - Josh - that warmed him. Maybe it was both.

Tyler almost hurt himself the day after his encounter with the stranger- Josh.  
Tyler couldn't believe that the st- Josh had come to him. Tyler had pined for Josh, but then Josh visited him willingly, of his own accord, and- Tyler was frankly bewildered.  
Josh was gone when he had woken, but that didn't dim Tyler's light.  
Tyler finally felt as if he had reason, after so long he gave off a light of his own.  
It was small, it was weak, it flickered and was dim enough to be overpowered by a mere nightlight or the glow from a digital clock, but it was still a light.  
It was Tyler's light.  
It died as the day wore on, but Tyler tried to fight to keep it alive.  
By the end of the day, Tyler's darkness was back, and the light had been smothered.  
Tyler felt as if he stole some of Josh's light, and wasted it.  
Tyler had looked for something to hurt himself with, but found nothing.

Tyler almost hurt himself again two days after Josh had left.  
His mother had left Tyler a watch to tell the time on. It was cheap, fake leather with metal embellishments. Tyler ripped it apart, keeping the part of the watch that told the time, and found a piece of metal that was sharp enough to shred skin. He hid it in his mouth when a nurse walked in.  
Two hours after the nurse checked all his signs, and after he had successfully aggravated her beyond the point of rationality by refusing to speak at all (which is why she stormed out of the room earlier than intended), he spat the metal out and drank some water to flush out the acidic taste, before picking it up and staring at it.  
Tyler tucked the metal under his back and closed his eyes.  
He felt so cold.

Tyler would've hurt himself three days after Josh had left.  
He woke with an ache to carve himself to pieces, to smear his red on everything in range.  
He had the metal poised on his arm, his muscles tensed under his skin as he readied himself to split himself deep enough to touch his concealed bone, which had become more prominent under his skin due to all his skipped meals of poor-quality hospital food.  
His cold, brown eyes met the blinding mocha circles that he craved more than his own blood.  
He pulled the metal away from his arm, where the shard had already pierced his skin in a shallow indent, as Josh crossed the room in a few bounds to grab both of his hands in concern. Tyler could almost feel the anxiety thrumming in Josh's veins, and he felt a crushing wave of guilt over realising that he caused it.  
"I'm sorry," Tyler whispered. Josh gripped Tyler's hands tighter.  
Tyler stared at Josh, panicked and sorrowful.  
"Don't tell them," Tyler pleaded. Josh lifted Tyler's knuckles to his cheeks, and shook his head,  
"I won't," Josh promised. Tyler's eyes relaxed and he extended his fingers to cup Josh's face.  
"Why do you come back to me?" Tyler asked. He couldn't help inquiring; the desire to know burned almost as brightly as Josh's warmth.  
Josh simply smiled and shrugged, and Tyler decided he doesn't care why Josh comes back, as long as he comes back.

Josh kept coming back.

"Promise you won't leave?" Tyler.  
"I promise." Josh.  
"Please promise me you won't leave after I get out of here." Tyler.  
"I'll walk with you on the way out." Josh.  
"I get out in a week, if I stay okay." Tyler.  
"Will you stay okay?" Josh.  
A silent pause.  
"I don't know." Tyler.  
"I'll help you stay okay." Josh.  
Another pause, this time with audible smiles.  
"I'm trying to believe you." Tyler.  
"I believe me, so you should too." Josh.  
"Thank you." Tyler.  
"Do you believe me?" Josh.  
"I think so." Tyler.  
Another pause. The soft smack of a kiss against skin rings out.  
"What colour should I dye my hair next?" Josh.  
No pause.  
"Red." Tyler.

Josh stayed true to his word.  
He helped Tyler stay okay. Tyler didn't hurt himself again after the day Josh walked in when Tyler was about to try to end it all for the last time. Tyler was discharged after three weeks.  
Josh held Tyler's hand as Tyler wobbled on his feet. He held Tyler close to him as they walked out of the glass entrance. The automatic sliding doors reminded Tyler of the first time he hurt himself. Tyler tugged on Josh's hand.  
Josh turned, and stopped in astonishment.  
Tyler was grinning. His eyes were shining, and his light was blinding.  
Josh stared, his chest lifting in exaltation.  
Josh fell for Tyler all over again.  
Josh slid a hand behind Tyler's neck and coaxed him forward, so gently, and touched their lips together so delicately Tyler started crying silently. Tyler's chest was about to burst from affection and joy, and he threaded his fingers with Josh's.  
Josh shared with warmth with Tyler, and Tyler gave Josh his light back. They both swelled under each other's sun.  
They were alive.  
They were each other's life.

Tyler almost hurt himself many times after meeting Josh.  
He would always call Josh and Josh would always come over, if circumstances permitted.  
He would come over if it were midnight or beyond, and he would excuse himself from classes on the odd occasions that Tyler struggled during daylight hours.  
Tyler helped Josh, too.  
Josh had been in the hospital for the same reason as Tyler, although his was half accidental. He had overdosed on pills for anxiety. He took them to ease the severe stage-fright he experienced when he played on stage with his band. Every time Josh was panicking, he would call Tyler and Tyler would assist him in any possible way. Tyler would come to Josh whenever he could.  
They grew impossibly close, and both their families joked that they were soulmates. Tyler and Josh knew it wasn't a joke, because they knew they truly were meant for each other, as cheesy as they knew it sounded.  
Tyler's family fretted over him constantly, but as time wore on, having Josh fuelling his light made them realise that Tyler was doing better than he ever was before. They accepted that they weren't helping Tyler as well as other people like Josh were, so they settled for just being pillars of support for Tyler if he ever needed a fallback. Tyler was grateful.  
Eventually, Tyler and Josh moved in together, into a cheap apartment. Josh worked at a nearby Guitar Center, and Tyler worked as a cashier at the local supermarket and part-time at an animal shelter. They managed well, and frequently disturbed the neighbours with late-night jam sessions (and some other sessions that are a little less innocent). Sometimes they entertained the idea of starting a band together.  
It was another three months before they realise that, hey, they should actually start a band! They had made their own personal songs, and they had past experience (except for Tyler, sort of, high school dabbling in basements with limited instruments and opportunities doesn't really count as band experience), so they figured they should just go for it. They only ever actively tried to finalise the band, however, when Josh got dropped from his old band. He was droopy for a few days, but Tyler helped, as he always does. Tyler and Josh decided on a band name over pizza, huddled under blankets with their sides pressed flush together. 'Twenty One Pilots'.  
Tyler basked in Josh's warmth, and Josh absorbed Tyler's light, and they both relished and flourished in each other's life.

Two years later, Tyler didn't hurt himself.  
Two years later, Josh didn't take anxiety pills before climbing on stage.  
Two years later, Tyler and Josh were in a band. They climbed on stage together.  
Two years later, Tyler and Josh were selling out concerts. Together.  
Two years later, Tyler and Josh were happy. Together.  
Two years later, that's what they were. Tyler and Josh. The two of them, together.  
Many years later, they still were together, and they knew they would always be together.

Many years later, Tyler's most recent memory is of Josh's smile and his warmth.


End file.
